An Important Message from BOUSD Superintendent

An Important Message from BOUSD Superintendent

Posted on 02/15/2018

Dear BOUSD Families and Community,

Our hearts go out to the victims and families of the horrific incident that took place on a high school campus yesterday in Florida. Sobering events like this always cause us to take stock in our own safety preparedness efforts.

On behalf of the district, we want to remind you that student safety is our number one priority and all of our schools have specific protocols in place to secure campuses once our students are inside and throughout the day.

This tragedy highlights the critical importance of ensuring that our schools remain safe places for our students and staff. I wanted to take a moment to reiterate that BOUSD has a safety plan that is specific to each site that is reviewed on an annual basis. We also have a unique relationship with the Brea Police Department that allows us to be in daily conversation about our school sites and events that occur in the City of Brea.

Each school year we hold drills at all of our sites focused on fire, earthquake, and intruder scenarios. In addition, we have conducted trainings this year with all of our district staff on protocols for unwelcomed persons on our sites. We also train our staff and students to speak up and report suspicious activity they see at our school sites or offices.

As a community, we ask parents, students, teachers, staff and administrators on our campuses to report any unusual or suspicious activity. Please talk to your child/children to remind them that they, too, can report anything suspicious. The National Association of School Psychologists notes there are effective ways to talk with your child/children about traumatic events:

- create a sense of safety by returning to normal, predictable routines as soon as possible
- listen to their concerns and feelings
- suggest they limit their use of media to lower their stress and to maintain balance and perspective, and
- realize that sleep difficulties are common and can lead to fatigue and poor participation.

We want everyone on our campuses to be empowered to speak up about anything that looks out of place. Please reach out to your school principals or site administration for guidance and questions. Thank you for your support.